This is about Day 1.

The plane ride over to Taipei was long.  It was 13 hours and 45 minutes from LAX.  By the time we arrived at the hotel – it was super early, like 6am.  They don’t let you check in until 3pm so we had to kill time, a lot of time. We stayed at Palais de Chine which is in the city right next to the Taipei Railway Station.  We went out to look for some breakfast and mostly everything was closed.  They told us there was a breakfast place nearby so we walked until we found it.  Along the way, we also passed by 85C!  It was tiny and looked nothing like the ones in the states.  I stared at some of the cakes, snapped a picture, and that was that.  Finally we found the taiwanese breakfast place.  We ordered soy milk, milk tea, two buns (meat & veggie), and a sesame flat bread with pork in it.  All that for $5.  It was yummy!!  Then we walked around some more to find something to do but nothing was open.  We saw a mcd so we stepped in to have a look and also stepped in to have a look at starbucks!  Starbucks was pretty much the same but in chinese.  MCD had some different sandwiches but I didn’t study it too much.  Then we started walking back and saw this fried dumpling place and decided we would eat some more!  We had fried curry dumplings, pork dumplings, spicy shrimp wonton like things, and fishball soup.  All very yummy and all super cheap!

To kill more time we went into the Taipei Railway Station.  This place is crazy cool!  It’s a central hub for the train, high speed rail, MRT, and buses.  I guess maybe they have these in the east coast or places where public transportation is more of the norm.  But it’s so neat.  It’s also a bit confusing cause I can’t read anything.  But you can pretty much get any where.  Also, on the 2nd floor is the craziest food court I’ve ever seen – there must be like 50-100 places to eat.  And for those of you who like sweets – my gosh – it’s like sweets galore!  Pastries, cakes, ice cream, donuts, and more desserts.  I was thinking about how cool it would be if Exodus had a place like this to eat lunch…haha.  There’s a whole section of beef noodle soups where there are like 6 shops selling them.  There’s a whole section of curry!  There’s just all kinds of foods and drinks.  Pretty awesome.

After that, we met up with my parent’s old friends and we took the MRT to go eat dim sum.  Things learned – stand on the right side of the escalator if you want to stand and go on the left if you want to walk.  Very organized, unlike the US.  Also, I saw that nearly everyone carried a bag of some sort – doesn’t matter if you’re a guy or girl!

Then, I was pretty much dying of not enough sleep so I had to take a nap.  Then in the evening we met up with my mom’s old friend and we went to some giant shopping center to walk around and eat.  She kept saying we were at Taipei 101 and I didn’t think so.  I STILL don’t think so lol.  It did not say Taipei 101 and it was totally a shopping mall.  We kept asking her if she was sure but then we felt bad cause what do we know?!  But I still don’t think we were there.  =P  After that, we decided to look for the night market/shops but to our surprise, it was closed!!  What the, it was early.

I also had to get my boba.  Turns out the place that F told me to go to, 50-lan was right down the street from the hotel.  Super tiny shop.  I ordered a boba milk tea with half sugar for like $1.20 or something ridiculous like that!!  And man, it was good!!!  I want more.  I’m kind of disappointed because our tour has been on the countryside and I haven’t been getting any boba or street food.  SAD.  :(  Once the tour is over, we’ll be back in Taipei for 1.5 days before I head home.  I told the parentals we must get boba, shaved ice, and go to the night market!!!  Else, I’m going to be very disappointed.  =

I passed out after getting boba.  So tired.

I definitely like the city much more than this countryside touring we’ve been doing for the past 2 days.  I totally wish we had just stayed there!

I’m actually blogging so I can remember things because I know I’m going to forget.

More about today later.

Spent 4.5 hours on a train this morning traveling to the countryside of Taiwan.  Totally didn’t know we were doing that.  I kept asking…uh, where are we going?  What are we doing?  What’s there to see?

Oh…side note.  I woke up this morning with CANKLES.  I am not kidding you.  I’ll post a picture later.  The area around both of my ankles were super itchy this morning because I got bit overnight – at least that’s what I suspect.  Anyway, so then I was looking at my ankles and noticed that they were swollen both on the inside.  Upon further inspection – my right ankle is also swollen on the outside.  They are both pretty swollen which is kind of weird and a bit concerning.  I know my right ankle has been swollen on the outside for awhile because I injured it but I always thought it was weird that it was always the inside that hurt even though it was swollen outside.  Now it’s swollen all over and is really nasty.  Hope it’s nothing serious.  =

Now, where was I?  Countryside of Taiwan.  They like to call it the backyard garden of Taiwan.  It’s filled with crops and greens – not a lot of people or cars.  Our first stop was this old train station I think – we weren’t there very long.  Second stop – wow I can’t even remember now.  Oh, second stop was boring haha – that’s why.  We were at some park or something?  There were mountains and plants?  BORING.  Haha.  Third stop was in Luye, I think.  We went countryside biking.  They showed us these cannon things they made and used to hunt with.  That was kind of neat.  More biking to the “green tunnel” where we laid on our backs in the middle of the street – random.  More biking, ate a mulberry popsicle.  Almost crashed the bicycle because I was trying to take pictures while biking and my bike seat kept falling lower.  I thought that bike was going to break.  Anyway, here we are at the Papagoda Resort.  We just had dinner – it wasn’t very good.  I really need to sleep some now.  I always start feeling sick and then it starts feeling like motion sickness when I don’t get enough sleep.

Yesterday was better, I think I like the city side of Taiwan way better than the countryside.  =P